


feel the subtle taste of the deeds outgrown

by Undertheweirwood



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Asha owns a bike shop, Bon Jovi - Freeform, Everyone's happy, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Mild Language, Sibling Relationship, Theon's becoming a fashion designer, but really only a little bit, i promise it's actually way better than it sounds, i'm not even sure what i was thinking when i wrote this, in the same AU as 'ain't it just like the present', robb is the biggest bon jovi fan ever i'll fight you, so uh, talking about love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 09:43:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3687519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Undertheweirwood/pseuds/Undertheweirwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Yeah, dad was a criminal.” Asha runs her hands through her hair, crumples a piece of paper on the table and throws it across the room in one graceful motion. “A criminal.” Her hand hovers mid-air for a moment, stretched out. The paper falls to the ground, bounces one and rolls to a stop. “Still... It’s weird, you know. Here we are, and then you have the Starks.” </i><br/><b><br/></b><br/>Asha and Theon talk about love, family, and it's safe to say that both of them get a surprise about the other along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	feel the subtle taste of the deeds outgrown

**Author's Note:**

> Wooow, okay, so basically I had the original idea for this when it occurred to me that Theon is 100% into fashion and designy things and would want to major in that in uni... And then... uh... It sort of went places? I have honestly no idea what to say about this except that it's a headcanon that... grew. (so basically all of my modern AUS, but... go with it??)  
> Major, major thanks to [Janie_tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine) , without whom this would not be a finished thing, or at least, a very incoherent finished thing. 
> 
> \-- title from "No Better", by Lorde, who is the queen of everything and honestly I get such Asha vibes from.

“You’re telling me you want to study... _what?_ ” Asha’s confusion is somewhat comforting, although Theon is not fool enough to think that she’s confused because she thought him too manly for such a major. More like, she’s shocked that even he would cross that line.

“Fashion design,” Theon repeats, wishing he could avoid having this conversation. He didn’t even want to, at first, but Robb had assured him that as Asha was the one paying for his tuition, she would see the forms soon enough and notice that anyway, and it was better she find out from him.

‘So...” Asha’s brow furrows as she knocks back a shot of the vodka Theon brought (as a peace offering, really... it wasn’t like his sister actually lacked for any kind of alcohol), before swiping a wrist across her mouth and leaning back on her chair. “You mean that I’ll be spending my money for you to learn how to be every eight-year-old girl’s dream?”

“Not you, when you were eight.” Theon has no idea where the words come from, only that once they’re out, there is naught he can do but stare at his shoes and await a response. 

To his surprise, Asha merely chuckles. “Well, one of us needed to be the man,” she says finally, pouring herself another generous portion of clear liquid. Her hand doesn’t shake and not a drop spills as she fills her cup to the very top.

Theon says nothing as he sinks down into the chair opposite his sister. Indeed, Asha has always been a tomboy, with her ratty ponytails and rattier denim shorts all through their childhood -- and on into the present day, Theon thinks, glancing at her black T-shirt and faded jean shorts. She always was the stronger one, defending Theon from his brothers when he was just a fat little kid, and then from everyone else when he was less fat but just as afraid. 

They sit there for a moment, Theon and Asha on the ratty black leather sofa that basically makes up Asha’s living room. Not that she’s even been so... domestic... but really, given how successful her bike shop is, one might think she might be living somewhere cool and badass and design-y. Not in what’s basically a glorified cell, a bedroom and a wide room that serves as everything else, and a grotty bathroom between.

Still.... Theon kicks off his shoes and curls his feet under him, leaning back against the soft worn leather. He can remember Asha from ten, fifteen years earlier, whispering to his tear stained cheeks that it wouldn’t always be this way, ‘this way’ meaning them all living in a glorified hovel with their brothers. And so Asha, well, Asha’s gone and done it. Of course she had, Theon thinks as he watches her pour more vodka with one hand, the black squid-shaped ring she always wears glinting on her hand. 

“So, little brother, what else?” Theon is jerked out of his musings by Asha’s wry voice, her lips twisted in the half smile he had grown up with. 

“Huh?” He frowns at her, wondering if the half-thimble of whiskey he’d knocked back with Robb (‘for courage’) is going to his head. 

Asha just stares at him a second longer before bursting out into raucous peals of laughter. “I mean-” She catches her breath, a smile playing around her lips. “Are you going to start wearing dresses? Fancy heels?” She laughs, pouring herself yet-another drink. Theon’s glad he brought it, if only to make silence less awkward. 

He sits back and looks at her, watches the shimmer of the light (cast from a couple of candles on a metal rack, nothing too pretty for Asha Greyjoy) on her dark curls as her head bobs, the curve of her back when she takes a long gulp. She has always been his big sister, his rock and his hero, for as long as he can remember. Asha is just that powerful.

Theon supposes he must look too sentimental for her tastes, because after a moment Asha is putting her glass down again, turning to him and rolling her eyes. “Stop whining.”

“I haven’t said anything!” Theon pouts, wishing he sounded less like his nine-year-old self.

“You were whining with your eyes, calm down.” Asha’s tone is playful, and she stretches out against the back of the sofa. “Does your boy know about you and your fairytale princess aspirations?” 

Theon doesn’t even need to look at Asha to know that she is smirking. She approved of Robb since the start, since they were best friends as kids, but it’s always seemed to tickle her that a proud Greyjoy is fucking a Stark. (Or more precisely, a Greyjoy is _being fucked_ by a Stark, but Theon figures thats all just technicalities.). _Well, she can suck it._

“Yep,” Theon replies flippantly, eyeing the half-empty bottle on the “coffee table”, an overturned milk crate heaped with moto magazines and an empty mug. 

Asha nods slowly. “You two are pretty cute. Even given...” She gestures vaguely, at herself, perhaps. At Theon.

“Even given _what?” Theon doesn’t know why he’s picking a fight. It’s not like it’s the first time someone’s been shocked that Robb Stark is dating him, but it feels like one time too many._

“Ah, man,” Asha sighs, drumming her hands on her thighs. “You were so small when dad was arrested. Mob business, you know? Stark and Baratheon lead the investigation.”

Theon nods. He knows this. He also remembers a lot more than Asha thinks he does. He remembers shouts and banging on the door and blood, so much blood....But that was Ned Stark, Theon reminds himself whenever he smells blood and feels his heart begin to flutter.. Ned Stark is not Robb Stark, and Theon knows that Robb Stark would never, ever hurt him.

Theon remembers a lot more than Asha thinks he does, but he also has forgiven a lot more than she has. “Yeah? So? Dad was breaking the law.”

“Yeah, dad was a criminal.” Asha runs her hands through her hair, crumples a piece of paper on the table and throws it across the room in one graceful motion. “A criminal.” Her hand hovers mid-air for a moment, stretched out. The paper falls to the ground, bounces one and rolls to a stop. “Still... It’s weird, you know. Here we are, and then you have the Starks.”

Theon knows all that she’s not saying. That they grew up in a place where murders were the norm, in a neighborhood where girls carried knives because if they didn’t they would suffer the consequences, and Robb grew up riding his bike with other kids down a pretty cul-de-sac and summering at the beach. 

“Yeah, but Asha- here we are.” Theon gestures at the room, at the sofa and the wide windows and the band posters hung up on the walls. “We made it out.” _Just like you always said we would._

“We made it out?” Asha puts down her drink, looks at Theon with eyes that take him right back to draughty nights in the little flat, curled on the couch while the wind screamed outside. She laughs, and it’s on the edge of bitter. “We made it out. You and me but not Rod or Maron or Mum, not any of them.” 

Theon can barely remember his mother, and what he does is mainly tears and pill bottles and the closed door, the closed door that meant he couldn’t go into her room. His older brothers, he remembers much better. Mainly kicks and punches and pinches and whispers, _faggot_ and _freak_ in his ear when he tried to go to sleep, the same things louder when they could get him to cry. Asha was closer with them, though, before they started on drugs and booze and girls with red-rimmed eyes that made everything worse.

Theon says nothing, because what is there to say? “I’m glad we got out,” he whispers, and it’s almost like a prayer. “I’m so glad.” 

“Amen,” Asha shoots back, shaking her head like she’s clearing the cobwebs from her mind. “I never thought that we would be able to have this- this happiness. Us _proud Greyjoys.” Her lips twist into a smile that’s half a grimace, and Theon wonders what it costs her to laugh this way, to joke and mock when she would have died for those same people they left behind._

They sit in silence for a minute, two washed up bits of wreckage from a ship that sank long ago, or perhaps one that is still sinking, out beyond the horizon. It’s not awkward though, and Theon thinks its the first time in a very long while he’s felt this at home around anyone but Robb.

“What about you and Qarl?” Theon asks tentatively, but he’s burning with curiosity. He’s heard around that Asha was back with her high-school boyfriend, but c’mon, it’s Asha. Still, though, there are silver-grey running shoes that Asha would never wear by the door, and beer cans that are so not her taste, and enough other little clues that he figures he’s gotta ask. (And anyway, if she gets mad now, Theon knows he’s gotten enough familial love for the while, and it wouldn’t be so bad.)

“Yeah,” Asha says, and while she ducks her head, Theon can see a smile on her lips, a soft one, in all the harness of her cheekbones. “Yeah.” 

“Well, uh, I hope he’s good to you and all.” Theon shuffles his feet. If it’s confirmed, he supposes that he needs to do the brotherly thing and give him a talk about hurting Asha, but the fact is, if Qarl does anything, Asha is more than capable (and certainly more capable than Theon) to make him pay for it herself. “He still has absurd hair?” Theon wants to clap a hand over his mouth as soon as he says it, but it’s too late. 

“Absurd hair?” Asha arches an eyebrow. Theon looks at his feet. He doesn’t remember much of when Asha and Qarl dated, except that he looked like Axl Rose, complete with long blonde hair sleeker than Asha’s ever was.

“Y’know- long and- and blonde, and blonde-” Theon stutters. What more is there to say? Qarl’s hair was very long and very blonde, and Theon, as a kid, had found it incredibly irritating. Especially in how pretty it was. 

Asha laughs, deep in her belly. “Yeah. Long and blonde as fucking hell. Ridiculous hair, that boy has but...” She trails off, staring up at the ceiling. “He’s good, you know? Ridiculous but good.” 

Theon nods, because oh yes, he knows. He sees Robb eating peanut butter from the jar and singing ‘Living on a Prayer’ at the top of his lungs on car trips. _Ridiculous, but good._

Theon would have laughed, a week or a day or an hour ago if someone told him he would have a heart-to-heart with his sister of all things, but as he sits back in the chair and listens to Asha talk about Qarl and his hair, Theon realizes things have never felt more right between them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me some feedback? Tell me it sucked? Tell me you liked it? Give me song reccomendations? _talk to me?_


End file.
